meh. The chance of me putting the wrong electrical current through and ruining it is possible, and I'd hate myself for it.

That's awesome you sampled in the store. hahahaha did you bring a handytrax with your 404 or what?

Yeah, its a pity that folk will get all high & mighty about what's the latest & greatest program/piece of hardware. I've hung & gigged with some dudes who were all about psytrance & minimal tech (YUCK!!!), they couldn't comprehend why anyone wouldn't use Ableton 15.7 linked with too many plug ins.

They shut up when asked about how to use a synth's ADSR with it's amp & filter. Turned out they were all about presets... They'd never used (some even touched) a hardware synth before. Fail.

Point is- genre bias will always subjective (of course, bias IS being subjective unreasonably, so does that make me a hypocrite for hating trance?). If the other person can't handle the fact you use something made 10 years ago as a mid-range device (not dissing the SP303, quality and market position aren't the same thing), then its probably just not worth talking tech with them. If they had a passion for the topic they'd be open to new ideas & methods.

Sorry Idiom, your boss sounds like a douche.



^Pedantic side note: technically your 'corporations' do dictate what we use! They (in our case: Roland) design, manufacture AND market our killer SPs to us! We're bound by their limitations as much as our own in terms of production tools... But I do see your point---> Think for yourself, don't be told "YOU NEED DEVICE X TO GET SOUND Y, ONLY USE THE NEWEST VERSION OR YOU ARE OBSOLETE/INFERIOR". Right?

Rant over.

agreed. Even though taking a stand for creativity is important, we do need to credit those who have made our tools.

I have mixed feelings about Roland. I consider them one of the best gear makers for the everyday musician. I've shelled out some heavy cash over the years for Roland gear (yes, I'm a gear whore, and I always regret selling my shit).

Juno 60 Synth
TR-606 Drum Machine
JC-120 Guitar Amp
GR-700 Guitar Synth
GR-707 Guitar
VS-880EX Recorder
VP-9000 Vari-Phrase Processor
DS-90 Digital Monitors
SP-808
JX-305 Groove Synth
SP-404SX

There have been a couple of times where I was really disappointed that Roland would cut off support for older gear and leave customers with no upgrade path. On the SP-808, there was even a few people who tried to hack the OS to allow hard drives to replace the zip disk...

In their efforts to keep up, products would sometimes feel like they had no real support because the next big thing would come out so fast. It's an age old problem...that seems to keep people like me shelling out too much cash!

Im just glad to have a huge discount on Roland products. 10% off cost is pretty damn neat

Idiom - i donno about you, but for me, part of using the SP's is tied to disregarding what everyone else says is the industry standard, you know?

like cats saying you gotta rock an MPC to make great beats, and not just an MPC, but either an old school 2000xl, or a 4000, and nothing in-between.

its a stupid point of view, and there are tons of examples of guys making great stuff on SPs, or EMUs or whatever else.

some people even make beats using cassettes! Just recording the same bit over and over to make loops on the other tape deck--Crazy shit!